This Neverlasting Peace
by Adara-chan67
Summary: After NRFTW, Dean is wasting away in Hell and Sam is wasting away on Earth. We knew that. But how could it end? It's a oneshot, it's short and fairly ambiguous , and Sam 'n Dean are bummed, but hot.


_Disclaimer: I do not own these boys on an _epic_ scale…_

_Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester_

_Setting: Post-NRFTW_

_Warnings: AU after the season premiere. Also, character death. Sort of. A little bit. Fifty percent, maybe._

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**Dedicated to LoupGarouAngel, because she's awesome.**

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This Neverlasting Peace

**Send a heartbeat to**

**The void that cries through you.**

**Relive the pictures that have come to pass,**

**For now we stand alone.**

**The world is lost and blown**

**And we are flesh and blood disintegrate**

**With no more to hate.**

Hell was dark and Hell was cold.

The first was obvious, but the second was…unexpected. Hell was supposed to be _hot._ It was supposed to burn the sin out of you—literally and figuratively and everything else.

Right?

_There really is a fire in the pit._

Except…there wasn't.

There wasn't a fire in the pit, and Dean was afraid.

But…well, he could see Sam. He knew it wouldn't last, knew it would be yanked away soon, leaving him alone and hurting and dead and sad.

But right now, he could see Sam clearly. He was smiling, happy, alive.

And Dean loved him.

**Is it bright where you are?**

**Have the people changed?**

**Does it make you happy you're so strange?**

**And in your darkest hour**

**I hold secrets flame.**

**We can watch the world devoured in its pain.**

Not much had been accomplished in the last twenty-nine odd years.

It was a terribly depressing thing, but it was true. Always had been. Dean was just coming to realize it more clearly the longer he spent down here.

He had not made the world a better place in his twenty-nine years of living. He had helped people, but they were, for the most part, stupid people and many of them hadn't even lasted long after he'd helped them. And the ones who had—

Well, everyone went someday.

Dean had rescued a few people, sure—but he hadn't found a way to cure death, to banish evil forever from the land, to keep the world out of Hell and send it to Heaven instead—to truly, really _save_ anyone.

What difference had he really made?

None.

_We're not gonna save everyone._

He hadn't saved _anyone._

But that wasn't strictly true, was it? He had truly saved one person, cured death from one single man, and he could still see Sam. They hadn't taken the picture away yet. It was still there. Sam was still smiling, happy, alive.

And Dean loved him.

**Delivered from the blast,**

**The last of a line of lasts,**

**The pale princess of a palace cracked,**

**And now the kingdom comes**

**Crashing down, undone,**

**And I am a master of a nothing place,**

**Of recoil and grace.**

The world was full of light.

Dean vaguely remembered that. He remembered the light, the prickly green grass, the laughter of children on a warm summer's day.

He remembered all that, but he was already starting to forget. Hell was burning the memories out of him.

So there really_ was_ a fire in the pit, after a fashion, and how long would it be before it did its job?

How long until he forgot what it was to be human?

_That's what Hell _is.

How long could he last?

What if he was just _tired_ of lasting?

All he wanted was to get _out._

_Sam_ was out. Dean could still see him—he was starting to think maybe the picture _wasn't_ going to go away. It continued to show him his brother. Sam continued to be smiling, happy, alive.

Relentlessly.

And Dean hated him.

**Is it bright where you are?**

**Have the people changed?**

**Does it make you happy you're so strange?**

**And in your darkest hour,**

**I hold secrets flame.**

**We can watch the world devoured in its pain.**

Sam's life was split into two parts now.

First there had been life With Dean, and it had had its ups and downs, but it had been good. Bright. Sunny. If there hadn't been something to look forward to, at least there had been a reason to get up in the morning.

But now he was living life Without Dean, and that was all bleakness and depression. All downs, no ups. No real reason to get up in the morning, no true desire to continue slogging through life. Just…loneliness.

Sam had always hated to be alone.

But here was the thing, the real kick in the gut: he wasn't sure how _not_ to be alone. Without Dean, he'd lost his ability to smile and make small talk and pretend he was okay. He'd lost the reassuring warmth of personality that made people open up to him, whether he returned the favor or not.

Sam had always possessed that ability. He'd been too modest to say so, but he'd always been aware of it. And now he was aware of its absence, and just as aware of how much he didn't _care._

The fact was, he was so _tired_ of people talking to him. He was tired of sobbing teenagers, grieving widows, terrified parents all puking their fears and their feelings all over him whether he liked it or not. Tired of listening to them all the time and getting nothing in return. Tired of everyone acting like their woes were the worst in the world when they had yet to even glimpse true suffering. And utterly sick of saving everyone, all the time, whether they deserved it or not.

He hadn't saved the one person who truly deserved it.

And now he wasn't really interested in saving anyone else.

**Time has stopped before us.**

**The sky cannot ignore us.**

**No one can separate us,**

**For we are all that is left.**

**The echo bounces off me,**

**The shadow lost beside me.**

**There's no more need to pretend,**

'**Cause now I can begin again.**

When Dean finally emerged from Hell, the world didn't look too different. It was still obnoxiously bright, with obnoxiously happy people. People still got born and died with depressing regularity.

Or it would have been depressing if he'd cared.

But as it was, it didn't really matter to him. It didn't matter if any of them lived or died. Normal demons wanted to kill, to destroy. Except Ruby, who'd protected—sometimes.

Dean wasn't like any of them. He didn't feel any need to destroy _or_ to protect. All he really felt was empty.

And that—the emptiness, the not knowing why he was there, the aching absence of desire toward anything at all—that was worse than any instinct to kill would have been.

So, in lieu of having any business, he just traveled. He'd been able to get his own body back, and he used it to go all over the world, doing nothing and hating how much he didn't hate it.

And then he ran across Sam in Los Angeles.

He was really beyond surprise by that time, so he wasn't surprised to run across Sam outside a downtown bar there.

He didn't hate Sam anymore, either. He felt no love for him, because demons didn't love—but he didn't hate him, either.

And _that_ was different, because in one way or another, he'd _always_ cared about Sam. And now he didn't—he felt nothing toward him at all.

And obviously, Sam had changed, too, in a number of ways. He didn't cry upon seeing Dean. Didn't smile, hug, or cling. He just took him into the bar and bought him a beer, and didn't say anything more until they started drinking.

"So you got your old body back, huh?"

"Good a suit as any," Dean said slowly, wondering why Sam didn't seem to care that he was a demon. Wondering why he felt so weird. Wondering why he wondered at all.

When he was alive, he and Sam had hated hearing humans called "meat suits." But now Sam didn't even flinch, just shrugged and took a long drink of his beer. Dean's confusion upped a notch.

"Kid of ironic, us running into each other here. City of Angels, and all."

"Where's the irony in that?" Dean asked, voice flat with disinterest only half-real, for once.

Sam just gave him this bizarre half-smile, but the sudden flash of black in his eyes told Dean all the answers, all he'd needed to know.

He looked down at his beer, untouched until now, and took a swig.

"Another thing, too. It's interesting that you should show up now."

This time Dean didn't ask any questions, and in a minute or so Sam picked up the thread again.

"Dunno if you know this, man, but there's a war coming."

Dean chuckled inwardly, bitterly. When _wasn't_ there a war coming?

Sam shrugged, for all the world as if Dean had actually said something. "Now, I'm not really a part of it. Don't care enough to pick a side—kinda like you."

Dean was trying to figure out how he knew when Sam sat back in his chair and let out a chuckle, startling in its cold mirthlessness.

"But God, this town will burn." And by "town," he clearly didn't mean L.A.

He glanced over at Dean, his eyes flashing black again.

"I don't know about you, brother, but I'd kinda like to watch the show."

Dean looked at him for a moment, then said, "You know, I really hated you for a while there. When I was dead and you still got to have a life."

"And now?" Sam asked slowly.

Dean thought about it—thought about how really, Sam probably hadn't been much more alive than he'd been. About how even after everything, they'd somehow ended up in this place, at this time, together.

"Does it matter?"

Sam studied him for a while, then wordlessly held up his bottle, waiting until Dean clinked his own against it.

And there they sat, two brothers-but-not, drinking in a bar late on a Saturday night.

Awaiting eternity.

Together.

**Is it bright where you are?**

**Have the people changed?**

**Does it make you happy you're so strange?**

**And in your darkest hour,**

**I hold secrets flame.  
We can watch the world devoured in its pain.**

**Strange…**

**Strange…  
Strange…**

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_Author's Note: Just to make it clear right off, I did _not_ write a horribly depressing fic and then dedicate it to Loup because I hate her. I wrote this entirely because she mentioned once while we were writing together(she's letting me co-author her NRFTW tag 'cause she's cool like that) that she liked darkfics. I'd never written one before, but I decided to see what I could crank out for her._

_Secondly, this is the first time I've _ever_ tried to write anything like this. I finished it in all of about an hour, because I wanted to get it up before Supernatural premiered tomorrow—insert epic squeal hear—so feel free to give your absolutely honest opinion!_


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